The present invention relates to a mechanical apparatus for the harvesting of bulb, root, and leafy vegetable products by appropriately dislodging same from the plant bed, conveying the dislodged product away from the plant bed, orienting same to a proper disposition and presenting same for placement into a suitable receptacle for further handling, processing or the like.
Row crops of such products, exemplified by green onions, carrots, radishes, turnip greens, mustard greens, and collard greens, are, in many cases, generally harvested by hand especially for fresh market sales.
Harvesters have been developed heretofore for the mechanical harvesting of onions and other products such as is described in Western Grower and Shipper, October 1977, pages 15 et seq. and in the Medlock et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,989,110. The onion harvester described in the article identified above which is entitled "Oshida Develops Green Onion Harvester", utilizes a square rotating breaker bar that is set to operate at a level from three to five inches below the surface, between two rows of onions. The bar rotates on a plane parallel to the rows of 400 to 500 revolutions per minute, to break the onion roots free from the soil. Thereafter, the onions are pulled from the ground by a set of opposing belts.
In the Medlock et al U.S. patent referred to above, a pair of twisted belts engage an upper portion of the onion at a forwardmost part of the apparatus, and a stationary blade located beneath the twisted belts penetrates the soil and severs or otherwise dislodges the onion bulb therefrom. Once dislodged, the onion is conveyed by the twisted belts into the throat of a pair of opposing rotating belts which lift the onion from the plant bed and convey same rearwardly and upwardly to a further series of oppositely facing conveyor belts, one of which is twisted to effect orientation of the onion from a vertical to a horizontal position.
In similar fashion, a harvester has previously been developed for the harvesting of leafy green vegetables as presented by D. L. Peterson, G. K. Brown, and A. K. Srivastava at the 1980 summer meeting of the American Society for Agricultural Engineers, June 15-18, 1980, San Antonio, Tex. ("Mechanical Harvester for Leafy, Green Vegetables", Transactions of the ASAE, vol. 24, (no. 2), pp. 312-314, 318). Gathering belts engage and hold the leaves while counter-rotating discs sever the leaves near ground level. Opposing belts then lift the severed leaves and orient the leaves to a horizontal position, after which the leaves are bunched and tied.
It is the type of harvesters described above that are improved by the present invention. Moreover, by virtue of the versatility of the present invention, same may be utilized for harvesting various bulb, root and leafy vegetable products, all without creating damage to the vegetable product. At the same time, a convenient and efficient means for harvesting and collecting the product for cleaning and/or future processing or packaging is provided.
It is submitted that the above prior art which is believed to be the most pertinent known to applicants does not teach or suggest the subject matter of the present invention.